A Migration of The Self

Or, The Thing I Thought I Left Behind

About a year ago life went sideways, again. It caused my husband and I to condense the necessities of our lives into our Ford Fiesta, and embark on a near cross-country move from Long Island, New York ( the place I have called home for over 30 years), to a small mountain town in South Dakota. We were scared, but also excited for the new life, and opportunities that awaited us.

Moving out of state was something that had been on our hearts for a while, but year after year came and went and we still couldn’t figure out how to make that happen. Every time we made a plan, something would come along to derail it.

In 2020, mid-Covid, we found ourselves having to relocate to yet another apartment. The first thing I said to my husband as we were carrying our boxes through our new complex was, “The next time we move, it will be out of state”. I said this with the assumption that we would have another few years to save and plan. I said this with the assumption that we would be migrating south, where some of our family and friends were, still keeping New York within driving distance should we ever get homesick.

So how did we end up west, with many states and time zones between where we thought we would end up?

I tend to describe it as: New York broke up with us.

She took our jobs, raised the rent, and essentially kicked us to the curb. Maybe she knew we were like those hopeless romantics who clung to their loveless relationships on the hope that tomorrow will be better, because it had been better before. Maybe she knew that we didn’t have it in us to say “it’s not you, it’s me”, maybe she knew that the only way to end this thing was to do it herself. So she did.

After many wasted hours frantically writing resumes and cover letters and applying to anything and everything I came across , I met my limit when my umpteenth application was paused by a pop-up from the employer website asking me to “explain your why,” and, “tell us what sets you apart from other candidates?”

This was for a remote, entry level customer service job that came with nothing but a pay-cut. All I will say, is that the response I gave was unhinged. And I didn’t care. I hit send and then went to voice my frustrations in a group chat. Shortly after I did that, our friend Matt chimed in, saying he might have a job for me if we were willing to move to South Dakota. I thought he was joking, and when he clarified he wasn’t, I did what I always do when I don’t want to be fully responsible for my decisions.

I flipped a coin.

From that point on, time sorta stopped, and life became a blur of packing boxes, teary conversations, and a quick visit to South Dakota ( at my father’s insistence, and to be fair it was a wise idea). We got back with just enough time to make the rounds to say goodbye to everyone we could get to. I will never forget the way my Grandmother hugged me, I think she knew it would be our last.

I got the job offer in mid August, we were on the road by the end of September.

The thought of moving to somewhere no one knew me was appealing. It wasn’t just about starting over in a new location, it was an opportunity to start over with myself. It wasn’t that I had anything to hide, but there were parts of me that were just never able to flourish in New York. I didn’t feel authentically seen. Maybe now, I could finally be whoever I wanted to be, free from the old and incorrect narratives that I had unwittingly adopted as fact from people who felt they knew me, but only as far as their own projections would allow.

Sociologist Robert N. Bellah said it best;

“Leaving home in a sense, involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves”.

However, once we settled into our new lives, and new routines, I soon found out that “rebirth” was not what I expected it to be.

The thing is, with the exception of what was going on within me, everything else was great. My new employers welcomed me with open arms and a lot of generosity. For the first time ever, my husband was getting home from his shifts with a smile on his face. Our new landlords were lovely; they had even left a pot of homemade chili in the fridge for us the night we arrived so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting groceries right away. The people in our neighborhood could not have been kinder or more helpful, and friendships were easily made.

There was so much “Midwest-Nice” going on that my jaded New York heart couldn’t help but be guarded and suspicious. I accepted every hand extended toward me, but in the back of my mind was the warning mantra of “there’s got to be a catch”. Except it’s been a year, there is no catch; these are just good people.

Despite all this goodness however, there were times, especially early on that I found myself feeling depressed, stuck, and isolated. Maybe the record-breaking winter had something to do with it. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, there were several instances where I was convinced I had forgotten what the sun looked like, and I was certain that we might actually be buried alive in the house from all the relentless snow that covered the state for four days straight. It might have also been the eerie way the Chinook winds wailed across our backyard making me feel like everything around me, including myself was haunted. Perhaps I was.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not foreign to winter months, New York has it’s fair share of snowfall, but it’s a different kind of winter out here for sure. It starts earlier, lasts longer, and there’s a bite to the air that I’ve never felt before.

I could also blame my moodiness on my husband’s new schedule that had him home close to midnight on most evenings. I found myself with plenty of time in the dark hours to ruminate anxiously, alone in an unfamiliar house, fixating on everything that I still considered “wrong” with my life. Though, some of this was by choice, I had received plenty of encouragement from our new community to stop in and hang out if I was ever feeling lonely. Sometimes I took them up on it, but other nights I opted not to, not wanting to impose my neediness onto the people I was still getting to know. Reminding myself that I was a grown-ass woman and shouldn’t need a babysitter.

What I realized in this unpleasant “alone time”, was that alot of my old habits and inner dialogue hadn’t been purged with the rest of the non-essentials left behind on Long Island. Instead, they were carried over in a subconscious box marked “Fragile”, and I was being given a chance to unpack it. Except I didn’t want to. Instead, I wanted to toss a match to it and carry on like that box never existed in the first place. I struggled with this for a while, and my friend Gabe summed it up pretty well one night when I had asked for his advice, knowing he was familiar with plenty of out of state moves:

“Wherever you go, there you are”.

He also told me to give it six months, and I’d probably be fine.

In two weeks we’ll have been here a year, and I’m definitely fine. These past twelve months have shown me that it wasn’t enough to move across states and time-zones. Escaping myself was as impossible as shedding my shadow, and my shadow was the very thing I needed to start reconnecting with.

I understand now that changing has very little to do with taking on a new persona, and everything to do with accepting the person you already are, in the here and now. The one with the baggage, the one with memories you’d rather forget. The one that tugs at your heart from the inside, while you’re sitting alone in a house that isn’t yours, reminding you that you’re still here, asking you to give yourself some love and attention. I learned I’d never feel at home unless I started making myself home first.

This story is true, but was inspired by Modern Women’s September Writing Prompt: Migration.